Rip My Heart Apart (I'll Feed It To The Ghosts)
by GideonGraystairs
Summary: But it could've been so easy, could've stayed so simple, if he'd just not been such a coward. If he hadn't lied and told Michael his feelings were unspeakable, that his own did not match.


**I've been filling out the requests for a ship + song or lyrics style prompting (as well as having finished the ones from the ship + line of dialogue thing) on Tumblr and have decided to post these ones here as well. Enjoy :***

 **Requested by ragnorsantiago: Safe and Sound - Taylor Swift and Waywood?**

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 **.:Rip My Heart Apart (I'll Feed It To The Ghosts)**

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 _I remember tears streaming down your face  
When I said, "I'll never let you go"  
When all those shadows almost killed your light  
I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"_

* * *

His hands are red with guilt, with sacrifice and loss and the unspeakable thing both have been killing to put into words. He runs them under the sink faucet first, lets them sit there until the water feels like ice digging through his skin. But the red isn't gone, is still caked across his skin like gloves and under his nails like a torture device. He wants it **gone**.

Eventually he's scratching, clawing at his skin like that'll make it disappear, until the blood on his hands is mixed with his own. He collapses, sinking to the cold tiled floor with the counter pressed against his side as he curls in on himself. Breath is heavy, the air is toxic, and his heart has dug claws into his throat.

He wants to turn back time. He wants to curl over his _parabatai_ 's fragile form and tell him everything's going to be okay. He wants to run his hands across his skin and kiss his forehead and _be there_ , like he hasn't in so long, but it's too late and he left him and there's **blood** on his **hands** because he was too much of a coward to admit the truth.

There was a time, at the start, when the truth had been simple; they were _parabatai_ , brothers, and where one went the other followed. Then, suddenly, there were words tumbling from Michael's lips and Robert was turning away, shutting him out, finding every excuse not to face him. The truth was a wretched arrow wedged into his heart, then, tearing through at an agonizing pace as someone pulled it through the other side.

But it could've been so easy, could've stayed so simple, if he'd just not been such a coward. If he hadn't lied and told Michael his feelings were unspeakable, that his own did not match.

Because now it was too late. Now Michael was a bloody corpse in a trench that wouldn't be found for days and Robert's hands were stained with red, with guilt. Now Robert was stuck in the moments before he'd left him laying there in a pool of his own blood, betrayed and alone in what were no doubt his final moments.

" _Don't leave me_ ," he'd begged, voice so soft and chocked Robert had barely been able to make out the words. His hands had clung weakly to his _parabatai_ 's shirt, coated in his own blood from where he'd had them pressed against the wound Robert now held shut instead.

" _I won't_ ," he'd replied. " _Never again._ "

And hadn't that been the joke? Because moments later he was turning his face to the waning light filtering through the hole they'd found their way down, the sounds of battle still waging on above. He'd left him, gently pried Michael's hand off his shirt and told him to keep pressure on the wound while he went to get help. He'd left him and he hadn't returned, hadn't gotten help like he'd said would, and he knew his best friend had bled out there, surrounded by empty dirt and stale air and not a single thing he loved.

He'd **left** him. And he hadn't even thought twice.

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 _Don't you dare look out your window darling  
Everything's on fire  
The war outside our door keeps raging on  
Hold onto this lullaby  
Even when the music's gone_

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"They found him," Maryse sobs, pressing her hands against her face. "They found Michael."

He rests a hand on her shoulder, tries to provide the comfort he knows he'll never have, and lets her curl into his arms as she cries. He doesn't say anything― he can't, his heart is back in his throat and the arrow is twisting through his it. He thinks if he tries he might burst into tears, too, and then they'll never stop.

"Why didn't any of us notice he was hurt?" the girl in his arms weeps after the silence turns suffocating, wrapping itself around the both of them and pulling taught. He flinches, sucking in breaths that feel as toxic as the blood he sometimes still sees caked across his skin.

He wants to say, _I did. I knew. I left him there to die. I'm sorry._

Or, maybe, he just wants to go back in time like he has every moment for the past week and hold his best friend's hand. _I love you too_ , he'd say and everything would be okay in the end.

But he can't and it's not and all he can hear is _don'tleavemedon'tleaveme **don'tleaveme**_. It haunts his dreams, his nightmares, and all the time in between like a song he can't get out of his head. It even hurts to think that, reminds him too much of when they were still in the academy and they'd sit under the birch trees with their books out, Michael humming some infuriatingly catchy tune just to annoy him.

He wants to be able to cling to that― to the good memories of pranking Eliza and pissing off Maryse, of passing notes in class and the grin that'd stretched across his face when Robert demanded they be _parabatai_. He wants to cling to what he loved, what he knew, what made him smile every time it popped into his head, but he can't. Every single time he tries it twists into a hand clutching at his jacket and his best friend's blood caked under his nails.

He tries to picture his smile and all he sees are the lips he should've kissed. He tries to imagine his laugh and all he hears is the sound of him choking on the blood in his throat. He tries to remember his eyes bright with indulgent affection and all he can think is he's never going to see them again, they're gone, it's his fault, _he should've stayed_.

Maryse clings to his jacket and he pushes her off because her hands are not her own, they're Michael's and he just wants to forget he ever loved him. She stares up at him in shock, tears still streaked across her face, and he turns away the same way he had in the trench.

They're going to burn his brother's body tomorrow and all he's going to see is the fire he let die.

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 _Just close your eyes  
You'll be alright  
Come morning light,  
You and I'll be safe and sound._

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 **Did I mention the 146 Things To Do Besides Self-Harm collection I started on tumblr? Go check it out at /tagged/146things on either my main blog (gideongraystairs) or my writing blog (taitewrites). Love you all *insert another heart***

 **Also this is my favourite of all the drabble-y tumblr things I've written, though I'm A Little In Love With The Way You Fight For Me is a close second.**


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